The 7th edition of the Africa Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Champions Forum hosted by Uganda has kicked off at Speke Resort Munyonyo.
The forum, hinged on the theme “Unlocking The Potential of African Businesses” is organized under the auspices of Afric Earch, in collaboration with the Arab Bank of Economic Development in Africa (BADEA), African Guarantee Fund, Private Sector Foundation Uganda (PSFU), and Uganda Development Bank (UDB).
It has attracted more than 22 keynote speakers, reprentatives from a vast number of financial institutions, government representatives, experienced entrepreneurs and more than 300 SMEs accross Africa.
It is a two-day seminar, running from 6th, to 7th October and it aims at looking into ways of revamping African economies which experienced a tepid growth due to adverse effects of Covid-19.
The Pandemic greatly disrupted SMEs which form a significant backbone of Africa’s economy hence shrinking the continent’s Growth Domestic Product (GDP).
Besides, the forum is also tailored towards revitalizing the current entrepreneurship ecosystem in Africa through which SMEs can be harnessed and supported to become profitable, sustainable and scalable.
This is in addition to providing an important platform to engage indigenous small business owners, in terms of bringing about development solutions that address today’s social and economic challenges.
“You have got to start a side hustle. Get a side hustle that will help you supplement your income,” advised Patrick Bitature, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Simba Telecom, while delivering his keynote speech at the forum.
Nevertheless, the forum provides a fertile ground for addressing high attrition rates of SMEs, by pointing out their challenges and opportunities, hence creating an ecosystem to foster ways of how business players can work concertedly to circumvent these challenges.
While delivering her speech at the forum, the CEO for UDB Patricia Ojangole said, “SMEs as we all know are key drivers in fostering innovation, job creation and wealth creation in Uganda…….in our country, 8.5 million people are employed in this sector, and account for approximately 90% of the private sector, forming over over 75% of our country’s GDP…….it is important to understand what are the specific issues or challenges that make these businesses not to survive.”
Cut-throat challenges that SMEs in Africa face include; lack of business development support systems, inefficient governance practices, inadequate adoption of technology to scale, inadequate access to expertise, and inadequate access to funding.
The forum is therefore expected to breed modalities to jump-start funding for SMEs across Africa to foster their scalability, sustainability and social responsiveness.
Needful to point out, the forum is also hinged towards providing advisory and business development services, identifying funding partners Africa can benefit from, hence enabling SMEs to acquire funds needed to scale their operations at a cost that is commensurate with their operations.
“On the African continent where SMEs represent 90% of the business each year, each crisis must be anticipated and thoroughly reflected, in order to protect this network that provides millions of jobs and therefore truly drive African economies,” Said Didier Acouetey, the Chief Commissioner of the Africa SME Champions Forum.
The Africa SME Champion Forum, a major annual event tailored towards the growth of African companies was launched during the Dakar edition in Senegal in 2014. It resumed today after a halt in 2019, due to the outburst of the Covid-19 Pandemic.
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